New Josh Duggar Report Includes Disturbing Details That Nobody Should Share -- Including Us

The news coming out of the Duggar camp seems to be getting progressively worse, ever since Josh Duggar admitted to inappropriately touching young girls when he was 14 in 2002. Thanks to a 2006 police report, we knew that some of the girls he molested were his own sisters, but now the alleged victims are being named. In addition to the complete and total violation of privacy of these girls, we're learning that parents Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar may have played a bigger part in Josh's criminal activity than we realized.

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Let's not even get into naming the victims. It's a travesty that some other media outlets are naming names, because these are young women now, who may or may not have gotten adequate counseling to deal with the trauma of having been a victim a sexual assault. It's just wrong, and they deserve whatever shreds of privacy they have left in their lives.

Now let's talk about Jim Bob and Michelle. In the most recent police report, this time from the Washington County Sheriff's Office, the Duggar family patriarch claimed that Josh had confessed to touching the girls on multiple occasions.

Referred to as James in the documents, Jim Bob told police that Josh, then 14, came to him in March of 2002, "very upset and crying."

"James said that [redacted, Josh] had told him that he had been sneaking into [redacted, minors'] room at night and had been touching [redacted, minors'] on the breasts and vaginal areas while they were sleeping." According to Josh, this had happened four or five times.

Here's where Jim Bob and Michelle messed up, in my opinion. Instead of immediately sending Josh out of the home for professional help, getting the victims proper counseling with a licensed professional, or reporting the incidents to the police, they did nothing but talk to the minors about it, who said that they had no memories of being molested, other than one who said Josh took her blanket away while she slept.

As such behavior often does, Josh's actions escalated. In July 2002, Josh confessed to Jim Bob that he had molested a minor female family friend as she slept on the couch. He was reportedly "disciplined" after this incident, but it's unclear what that was.

Despite whatever discipline was given to Josh, he went to Jim Bob a third time in March 2003, when he was 15 years old. His molestation had increased to the point where he was forcibly touching his victims while they were fully conscious.

It was only then that Jim Bob and Michelle sent him to a family friend who either operated a treatment center or some sort, or was remodeling a building. Reports as to Josh's three-month "treatment" in 2003 are varied, and it's hard to piece together exactly what happened.

After Josh got back, he finally had his first confrontation with law enforcement over his actions, when Jim Bob took him to meet with state trooper Joseph Hutchens. Hutchens, who is now serving 56 years in prison for child pornography himself, claimed that the Duggars told him that the molestation had only occurred one time, so he gave Josh a "stern" talking to, rather than turning him in.

If an investigation had been launched at that point, Jim Bob and Michelle could've faced up to six years in jail, according to legal experts. Because they wait 16 months to contact anyone in law enforcement about Josh, they could have been charged with Permitting Abuse of a Minor (Arkansas Code 5-27-221).

By the time an official report was made in 2006, the statute of limitations had run out. It's hard to think about how many lives have been affected by Jim Bob and Michelle's unwillingness to take adequate measures to protect the girls in their care. As wrong as Josh's actions were, it seems from these reports that he really did try to get help, and was denied the psychological care he obviously needed.

Do you think Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar should've gone to jail for permitting the abuse of minors in their home?